If you want to be an athlete, there's no way around it: You have to go to the gym. You can't Google your way to it.
Michael HortonJesus and spirituality can easily become therapies that merely help us cope with life. They can serve us if we chose Him over other service providers. We even talk about "making Jesus my personal Lord and Savior," as if we could make Him anything!
Michael HortonAs we are brought into God's extraordinary kingdom through ordinary means, we are remade, no longer fashioned as competitors for commodities in a world of scarce resources, but as co-sharers with Christ in the circulation of gifts that flows outward from its source without running out.
Michael HortonTo preach the Bible as 'the handbook for life,' or as the answer to every question, rather than as the revelation of Christ, is to turn the Bible into an entirely different book. This is how the Pharisees approached Scripture, as we can see clearly from the questions they asked Jesus. For the Pharisees, the Scriptures were a source of trivia for life's dilemmas.
Michael HortonNo one will be offended if we tell them that they are good people who could be a little better. The offense comes when we tell them that they - and we - are ungodly people who cannot impress God or escape his tribunal. Until our preaching of the law has exposed our hearts and God's holiness at that profound level, our hearers will never flee to Christ alone for safety even if they come to us for advice.
Michael Horton